The monument was inaugurated in 1880, the same year of the death of the celebrated surgeon, and remembers that Rizzoli, not having a family of his own, "donated all his riches (about three million lire) to the provincial administration of Bologna to fulfill his dream of founding a large, clean and modern hospital, ouside the city on the hillside, 'for the prevention and treatment of the deformations of the body'. Rizzoli died a few weeks after signing the purchase of the big building, which was inaugurated in 1869 and today is known as the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli"1.